302 R. H. MATHEWS. 



C, B and A of our example had moderate families, a good 

 few people would be added to No. 1 district in three gener- 

 ations. But this is not all. 0, B and A probably had each 

 several brothers who all had similar families to themselves, 

 which would still further reinforce the population of that 

 locality. In these families where the totem is handed 

 down, as we have seen, from father to son in perpetual 

 succession, all the men mentioned would belong to the 

 same totem. 



After a long time, the members of this family might con- 

 sider themselves strong enough to defend their own hunt- 

 ing grounds, and would become an independent triblet. If 

 they all belonged to the kangaroo totem, they could appro- 

 priately be distinguished as the kangaroo clan. If the clan 

 from which C and A obtained their wives were all of the 

 musk duck totem, they could be called the musk duck clan. 

 Again, the eastern people where B of our example ex- 

 changed his sister for a wife for himself, might be all crows, 

 and would be denominated the crow clan, and so on. The 

 name " totemic clans " may be used to distinguish triblets 

 constituted in this way. 



For some reason, the kangaroo triblet might divide into 

 two or more smaller totemic clans and the musk duck 

 people the same. Some of the kangaroo men might go to 

 one clan for a wife and some to another, as in the examples 

 a few pages earlier, where the men went from No. 1 to the 

 north, east, west, etc. In this way all the clans, although 

 dispersed over a considerable territory, would be united by 

 bonds of kindship which would fuse them into one great 

 nation. 



A girl who has been betrothed to a certain man may die 

 before he gets her, and therefore, to neutralize the chances 

 of a man not obtaining a wife, more than one girl is usually 

 betrothed to the same youth. On the other hand, one girl 



